‘No, no. Of course not.’
‘Don’t you agree with me, that Cecily will insist on the wedding?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ What else could she say?
Gilligan and Mahon had gone, and Emmy was clearing the table when she returned. Emmy whirled upon her.
‘She ain’t going to take him? What was Uncle Joe saying?’
‘Her people don’t like the idea. That’s all. She hasn’t refused. But I think we had better stop it now, Emmy. She has changed her mind so often nobody can tell what she’ll do.’
Emmy turned back to the table, lowering her head, scraping a plate. Mrs Powers watched her busy elbow, hearing the little clashing noises of china and silver. A bowl of white roses shattered slowly upon the centre of the table.
‘What do you think, Emmy?’
‘I don’t know,’ Emmy replied, sullenly. ‘She ain’t my kind. I don’t know nothing about it.’
Mrs Powers approached the table. ‘Emmy,’ she said. The other did not raise her head, made no reply. She turned the girl gently by the shoulder. ‘Would you marry him, Emmy?’
Emmy straightened hotly, clutching a plate and a fork. ‘Me? Me marry him? Me take another’s leavings? (Donald, Donald.) And her leavings, at that, her that’s run after every boy in town, dressed up in her silk clothes?’
Mrs Powers moved back to the door and Emmy scraped dishes fiercely. This plate became blurred, she blinked and saw something splash on it. She shan’t see me cry! she whispered passionately, bending her head lower, waiting for Mrs Powers to ask her again. (Donald, Donald. . . .)
When she was young, going to school in the spring, having to wear coarse dresses and shoes while other girls wore silk and thin leather; being not pretty at all while other girls were pretty —
Walking home to where work awaited her while other girls were riding in cars or having ice-cream or talking to boys and dancing with them, with boys that had no use for her; sometimes he would step out beside her, so still, so quick, all of a sudden — and she didn’t mind not having silk.
And when they swam and fished and roamed the woods together she forgot she wasn’t pretty, even. Because he was beautiful, with his body all brown and quick, so still . . . making her feel beautiful, too.
And when he said Come here, Emmy, she went to him, and wet grass and dew under her and over her his head with the whole sky for a crown, and the moon running on them like water that wasn’t wet and that you couldn’t feel. . . .
Marry him? Yes! Yes! Let him be sick: she would cure him; let him be a Donald that had forgotten her — she had not forgotten: she could remember enough for both of them. Yes! Yes! she cried, soundlessly, stacking dishes, waiting for Mrs Powers to ask her again.
Her red hands were blind, tears splashed fatly on her wrists. Yes! Yes! trying to think it so loudly that the other must hear. She shan’t see me cry! she whispered again. But the other woman only stood in the door watching her busy back. So she gathered up the dishes slowly, there being no reason to linger any longer. Keeping her head averted she carried the dishes to the pantry door, slowly, waiting for the other to speak again. But the other woman said nothing, and Emmy left the room, her pride forbidding her to let the other see her tears.
11
The study was dark when she passed, but she could see the rector’s head in dim silhouette against the more spacious darkness outside the window. She passed slowly on to the veranda. Leaning her quiet tall body against a column in the darkness beyond the fan of light from the door, she listened to the hushed myriad life of night things, to the slow voices of people passing unseen along an unseen street, watching the hurried staring twin eyes of motor-cars like restless insects.
A car slowing, drew up to the corner, and after a while a dark figure came along the pale gravel of the path, hurried yet diffident. It paused and screamed delicately in midpath, then it sped on towards the steps, where it stopped again, and Mrs Powers stepped forward from beside her post.
‘Oh,’ gasped Miss Cecily Saunders, starting, lifting her hand slimly against her dark dress. ‘Mrs Powers?’
‘Yes. Come in, won’t you?’
Cecily ran with nervous grace up the steps. ‘It was a f-frog,’ she explained between her quick respirations. ‘I nearly stepped — ugh!’ She shuddered, a slim muted flame hushed darkly in dark clothing. ‘Is Uncle Joe here? May I—’ her voice died away diffidently.
‘He is in the study,’ Mrs Powers answered. What has happened to her? she thought. Cecily stood so that the light from the hall fell full on her. There was in her face a thin nervous despair, a hopeless recklessness, and she stared at the other woman’s shadowed face for a long moment. Then she said ‘Thank you, thank you,’ suddenly, hysterically, and ran quickly into the house. Mrs Powers looked after her, then, following, saw her dark dress. She is going away, Mrs Powers thought, with conviction.
Cecily flew on ahead like a slim dark bird, into the unlighted study. ‘Uncle Joe?’ she said, poised, touching either side of the door-frame. The rector’s chair creaked suddenly.
‘Eh?’ he said, and the girl sailed across the room like a bat, dark in the darkness, sinking at his feet, clutching his knees. He tried to raise her but she clung to his legs the tighter, burrowing her head into his lap.
‘Uncle Joe, forgive me, forgive me?’
‘Yes, yes. I knew you would come to us. I told them—’
‘No, no. I — I — You have always been so good, so sweet to me, that I couldn’t. . . .’ She clutched him again fiercely.
‘Cecily, what is it? Now, now, you mustn’t cry about it. Come now, what is it?’ Knowing a sharp premonition he raised her face, trying to see it. But it was only a formless soft blur warmly in his hands.
‘Say you forgive me first, dear Uncle Joe. Won’t you? Say it, say it. If you won’t forgive me, I don’t know what’ll become of me.’ His hands slipping downward felt her delicate tense shoulders and he said:
‘Of course, I forgive you.’
‘Thank you. Oh, thank you. You are so kind—’ she caught his hand, holding it against her mouth.
‘What is it, Cecily?’ he asked, quietly, trying to soothe her.
She raised her head. ‘I am going away.’
‘Then you aren’t going to marry Donald?’
She lowered her head to his knees again, clutching his hand in her long nervous fingers, holding it against her face. ‘I cannot, I cannot. I am a — I am not a good woman any more, dear Uncle Joe. Forgive me, forgive me. . . .’
He withdrew his hand and she let herself be raised to her feet, feeling his arms, his huge kind body. ‘There, there,’ patting her back with his gentle heavy hand. ‘Don’t cry.’
‘I must go,’ she said at last, moving slimly and darkly against his bulk. He released her. She clutched his hand again sharply, letting it go. ‘Good-bye,’ she whispered, and fled swift and dark as a bird, gracefully to a delicate tapping of heels, as she had come.
She passed Mrs Powers on the porch without seeing her and sped down the steps. The other woman watched her slim dark figure until it disappeared . . . after an interval the car that had stopped at the corner of the garden flashed on its lights and drove away. . . .
Mrs Powers, pressing the light switch, entered the study. The rector stared at her as she approached the desk, quiet and hopeless.
‘Cecily has broken the engagement, Margaret. So the wedding is off.’
‘Nonsense,’ she told him sharply, touching him with her firm hand. ‘I’m going to marry him myself. I intended to all the time. Didn’t you suspect?’
12
San Francisco, Cal.
25 April 1919
Darling Margaret,
I told mother last night and of coarse she thinks we are too young. But I explained to her how times have changed since the war how the war makes you older than they used to. I see fellows my age that did not serve specially flying which is an education in itself and they seem like kids to me because at last I have found the woman I want and my kid days are over.
After knowing so many women to found you so far away when I did not expect it. Mother says for me to go in business and make money if I expect a woman to marry me so I am going to start in tomorrow I have got the place already. So it will not be long till I see you and take you in my arms at last and always. How can I tell you how much I love you you are so different from them. Loving you has already made me a serious man realizing responsabilities.
They are all so silly compared with you talking of jazz and going some place where all the time I have been invited on parties but I refuse because I rather sit in my room thinking of you putting my thoughts down on paper let them have their silly
